The scope of this DLC is pushing on being its own full scale game with the amount of content From poured in here, wasn’t keeping count but it probably took me over 30 hours to reach the end and I haven’t even explored everything yet by then. Makes sense why it took so long

Like the base game the map design is my favorite thing about it. From claimed the Realm of Shadow would be the size of Limgrave at most but that was greatly underselling it. Not only is it actually more like 3/4 the original map, it also cleverly hides how much verticality there is by stacking different zones on top of each other. This makes it feel impressively dense even compared to the Lands Between, and taking any random direction in the starting area will make you lost for quite a while with plenty of unique areas to discover, that in themselves can expand into their own mini dungeons or go underground too. You’ll often be looking over cliffs and wondering how you’re even supposed to get to these places, and figuring out how is like a puzzle in itself since the map doesn’t make the paths immediately clear. There are still some repeat locations though (catacombs back with a vengeance but not frequent at least) and I did feel there could’ve been more interesting loot to find in the optional zones (90% of what you’ll be finding are smithing stones and cookbooks), but those are my only gripes. It’s an excellent open world and From’s amazing art direction really sells the epic sense of scale it has just the same

In regard to combat the DLC takes an interesting approach with how it gives strong incentive for high level players to actually explore instead of trying to rush through the main content, and that’s with Scadutree Blessings. Worth noting that even with maxed out stats, this DLC will be very hard regardless simply cause it’s using different scaling from the base game. As an alternative to normal leveling, all over the map are these items to find which will give a permanent boost to your attack and defense power, and you’ll really want these to stand a chance against some of these bosses. This is mostly well executed and I’d say it does a good job with bringing back a sense of character progression, though past a point it felt like the scaling benefits were diminished with later bosses still being able to kill you in 2 hits regardless even with all of them collected. They aren’t often obvious to find either which can be annoying if you don’t want to use a guide

You might have already heard but these bosses are generally nightmarish to fight. Even compared to ER’s toughest like Malenia they’re pretty brutal, and most of them carry over that same level of difficulty with how hard they hit and how crazy fast and flashy their attack patterns/combos can be. I can see why people would get really stuck on some of them, but the vast majority are still doable solo with practice/memorizing, and collecting the items does make a difference with managing the difficulty early on (though as mentioned this gets less useful for late game)

There’s only one that was a bit much for me though, and that’s the last boss. I won’t spoil specifics about them but I found it absurdly difficult to the point that it wasn’t really enjoyable. The first phase is a fun challenge, like previous bosses the room for error on their attacks is near zero but it can be memorized and you’ll start clearing it without much trouble after enough tries. The problem is the second phase which leans heavy on the kind of attacks I’m really not a fan of, bullshit AoE spam. The effects are so excessive it’s hard to even see what’s going on, and I still don’t understand if you’re even able to dodge them since I would take damage no matter what I tried. This is on top of keeping track of their super fast moves that’ll hit like a truck if you’re distracted for even a second. The blessing items made the least amount of difference here, I fought them with all 20 collected and was still struggling just the same, and the only reason I was even able to beat it after many hours of trying was relying on a shield and just hoping I’d get lucky with tanking hits. Ash summons or mimic can help and it does draw attention, but in my case they weren’t very useful either as the boss will either ignore them and chase after you regardless, or just quickly kill them if they focus too long. I’ve likely died more times here than in any of From’s games, would be greatly surprised if it isn’t nerfed at some point lol

Anyway long story short it’s more Elden Ring. I think I preferred the main game a bit more overall but if you’re already a fan then this is a no brainer obviously. It is $40 which runs pretty high for an expansion, but for what you get it’s well worth it. Also if you can, play the PS4 version on PS5. I had little performance issues aside for some occasional stutters but from what I’m hearing every other platform’s a lot worse in that regard